I must apologize. I know there are hundreds, perhaps thousands of books with “Seven Secrets” that you need to know for love, happiness, wealth, health or whatever. Over the years, I have been amazed at the sheer volume of memoirs and self-help books that rely on the number seven to dispense their wisdom. I remember learning in a psychology course, that the average person can remember seven unrelated items with the range being 5 to 9. Statistically, we could say that five to nine defines a range of three (+/-)standard deviations within which 99.73 percent of a normal population will fall. Practically speaking, this means that most human beings can remember between five to nine random numbers the ideal or mean being 7.

Thus having phone numbers, car license plates, or anything requiring memory retention based on the number seven makes a great deal of sense. This also explains why there are so many books and writers who base their theories on the number Seven! You did not really think that Seven of anything would suffice to provide you with success, wealth and happiness? Not to mention happy polite children and a health regimen where you could eat whatever you want and not gain weight. Of course, there is a multitude of “experts” trying to sell you their system who want you to believe that “Seven” is the magic number.

To explore the above hypothesis, I went to Amazon and typed in the following words in parentheses in the books section. I then queried Google Search and tried them for results. Below alongside the word pairs are the number of entries:

Amazon Books Google Search

Two secrets: 1,104 212,000

Six secrets: 597 204,000

Seven secrets: 1,333 1,090,000

Eight secrets: 291 43,000

Ten secrets: 714 211,000

You can clearly see that regardless of methods, “Seven Secrets” is by far the preferred theory. On Google Search Seven Secrets was over 5 to 1 as numerous as any other combination.

Okay, so now that we have established the reason for and the importance of “Seven”, I will give you my list of Seven Secrets. I call my list the Seven Secrets of Everything for the simple reason that my Seven Secrets will give you all the abilities, skills and talents that you need to know in life. The other lists will be helpful when it comes to specifics. However, my Seven Secrets are the keys to unlocking all the other Secrets that those more well-known authors (Covey et. al) and pundits will be trying to sell you.

My secrets are the keys to “Everything.” Like Tolkien’s “One Ring to Bind them All,” my secrets are the keys to unlocking the power of all the other secrets in the universe. Whether you are trying to overcome divorce, build a new business, find a life partner, relocate to another climate or simply find the best recipes on the web, my secrets will guide you to Total Personal Satisfaction in whatever you do 100 percent of the time. And here is the best part of all.

Unlike other authors, writers, philosophers and lecturers, I will give you mine for free and I also promise that you will never be asked for an endorsement or any follow-up purchases. I also promise not to bombard you with advertisements, send you text messages or spam email. I also promise that I will not do any product related endorsements to compromise the value of my Seven Secrets of Everything. You only get a deal like this once in a life-time so read on for the Seven Secrets of Everything.

Well, I have a confession to make before we go any further. On Wednesday of this week, I had Prostate surgery and spent most of Wednesday (Jan 22) and Thursday at the Mayo Clinic in Scottsdale. No, I did not forget the Seven Secrets of Everything, but I am home now spending most of my time in bed. I noticed while writing this blog, that at the point of sitting for about one hour, I was hurting and tired. Thus, I have decided to do this blog in two parts. Next blog, I promise I will share my Seven Secrets of Everything with you and give you some good solid reasons for believing in these secrets. For now, I will go back to bed, rest and write some more later. Thanks for your patience.

Time for Questions:

Do you have a favorite list of Secrets? How many Secrets do you practice or follow? Why? Would you share your List of Secrets with us in the comments section? Can we really reduce life to Seven of anything? Can these lists be helpful to guide us to more success and happiness?

Life is just beginning.

One of my physicians called me on Friday (Jan 24) to say that the lab results suggest they were able to get most of the cancer and that it had not spread out of my prostate. Thus, I am minus one prostate, but also minus one cancer. It was probably a good tradeoff and certainly an apt way to continue living the beginning of my life.

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“Just Give Me A Reason” Pink with Nate RuessI love the possibility that Pink raises in her song that a love which has gone cold can somehow be reignited. But can we really learn to love again? How many of us have had a love affair go south. A love that we thought was like no other. A love that would last forever! A love that caused all reason to go out the window and for which we would have sold our souls to the very devil himself. A love that friends and families said was meant to be and that would still be burning bright in the firmament when all the stars in the sky had long since dimmed. A match made in heaven itself that would never be seen again. No reason, no logic, no facts, no data, no statistics, no arguments, no evidence could convince us that we would not be with this person until the very end of time. But then something happened!

I’m sorry I don’t understandWhere all of this is coming fromI thought that we were fine(Oh, we had everything)Your head is running wild againMy dear we still have everythin’And it’s all in your mind(Yeah, but this is happenin’)

Suddenly, the impossible becomes possible. The unthinkable becomes thinkable. Your worst fears become reality. Nightmares become day dreams. You are cheating on the other person. The other person is cheating on you. You are drifting apart. You don’t connect like you used to. You find yourself wishing you were with someone else. You are hurt. You are lonely. You feel abused. You feel neglected. They don’t care about you anymore. Things are different but you don’t know why.

You used to lie so close to me, oh, ohThere’s nothing more than empty sheetsBetween our love, our loveOh, our love, our love

But can we really learn to love again? You don’t know. They don’t know. The impossible is now probable. You have lost faith in the dream. “Grow old along with me” has changed to “I can’t go on any longer like this.” Caring has changed to neglect. Closeness has been replaced with distance. Love has been replaced with apathy. Everything seems hopeless. What could have happened to us?

Just give me a reason
Just a little bit’s enough
Just a second we’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again
I never stopped
You’re still written in the scars on my heart
You’re not broken just bent
And we can learn to love again

But can we really learn to love again?Where do we start? We forgot what we meant to each other. We forgot how to care for each other. We forgot how much we once loved each other. How do we remember? Where do we find what we once knew?

Life conspires to help us forget. I told you that I loved you a million times. Each time I meant it more than the countless times before. But one day, I stopped saying it. Something was happening but I did not know what. Nothing had prepared me for the day that I forgot that I once loved you. Now, my once and forever love is not even a distant memory. Where do I find the love that I lost? Can I find it in your arms or in the arms of someone new?

Somehow it seems easier to look elsewhere for our lost and forgotten love. Divorce is fast and easy. I lost something that now I cannot find. Easier to move on and start over again. Legions of counselors, psychologists, therapists and ministers could not put our love back together again. I simply want to escape the pain and the loneliness. I did not mean for this to happen. We seemed to be so happy together yesterday and then today, it was all over. Dreams shattered like a boat in a storm on a rocky shoal. It all happened so fast, I was overwhelmed. I am devastated.

Oh, tear ducts and rustI’ll fix it for usWe’re collecting dustBut our love’s enoughYou’re holding it inYou’re pouring a drinkNo nothing is as bad as it seemsWe’ll come clean

But can we really learn to love again?I wishthat it were really possible but I don’t know where to start. How can we go back when I don’t remember what to go back to? What is the cause? How do I solve a problem when I don’t know what the problem is? Like the boat on the shoals, I feel like I am being battered on all sides. I can’t go back and I can’t go forward. I want to escape and I don’t know where or who to escape to. Somewhere there must be a happy ending.

Oh, we can learn to love againOh, we can learn to love againOh, oh, that we’re not broken just bentAnd we can learn to love again

But can we really learn to love again?

Time for Questions:

Why do we fall out of love? Was it really love in the first place? Can we bring back the feelings we once had for someone? Why or why not? Are you willing to do the work it takes to rekindle an old flame? Can it really be rekindled? Is it all about wanting to or is it all about desire? Do you know anyone who has “learned to love again?” What did they do? Could you do this? Why not?

Life is just beginning.

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Mark Twain once said that there are two types of people, those who read the newspaper and those who don’t. About these two types he said the following:

“If you don’t read the newspaper, you’re uninformed. If you read the newspaper, you’re mis-informed.”

Therein lays the dilemma of the 21st Century. We are surrounded by Big Data. Everywhere we look we find facts, opinions, statistics, surveys, scientific studies, research and think tanks. The airwaves bring us 24/7 talking heads, academic experts, on-the-spot journalists, interviews with eye-witnesses, interviews with people who were standing nearby, interviews with relatives, interviews with friends, interviews with deceased friends. J Anyone who might have remotely known anything about the subject or situation will be brought in to give their opinion. Eventually, some of these opinions, facts, experiences, experts etc. will produce a book, or documentary on the subject. In this morass of information, how can we sift the truth from the lies? How do we know what or who we can trust? How do we know what to believe?

Just for a factoid: I went into the advanced search on Amazon Books and typed O. J. Simpson into the “Keywords” and then selected “Biographies” under subject. There were 1,769 books written about O. J. Simpson by friends, relatives, acquaintances and hanger-on’s. Of course, even Simpson got into the act with a few books. Perhaps one book no one should miss is the one written by O. J’s dog (named Kato D’ Akita). The book blurb promises:

“Kato, the proud, purebred Akita dog, has steadfastly maintained his silence over what he saw on the terrible night of the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson, former wife of O.J. Simpson, and Ron Goldman. Now, lured by a multi-million dog-bone advance, Kato barks out what REALLY happened on that windy night outside the home of Nicole. Kato also comments bitterly on the human foibles he saw going on around him-the aimless sexual couplings, the fervid rush to golf on Sunday morning, which Kato thought was a religious service, and the many women friends that O.J. juggled in the months leading up to the killings.”

The author of this book no doubt wanted to inject a little levity into the morass of books written about O. J. Simpson and his trial.

How do we know what to believe? How do we know who to believe? Do even dogs tell the truth these days? A number of years ago, I came across a philosophy text which described four ways by which humans try to discern the truth and find answers to the questions of the universe. Since then, I have found other writers and philosophers who describe anywhere from one to ten ways of knowing what is true. These include the following:

Emotion

Faith

Imagination

Authority

Intuition

Language

Memory

Reason

Tradition

Empiricism/sensory data/experience

The majority of experts on the subject usually list four major ways of knowing as:

Empiricism/experience

Reason

Authority

Intuition

To this list I would also include Tradition as an important method that is often used by people to find out what or who to believe. Thus, for the purposes of this blog, I will talk about Five Methods of Knowing or Believing. These will include:

Empiricism/experience

Reason

Authority

Intuition

Tradition

Each method has pro’s and con’s. No one method is full proof. Each has disadvantages and advantages. Making our task more difficult is the fact that the various methods are relatively independent. You cannot just take and blend each or mix and match each and get a stronger result. If you accept Authorityas your mode of believing, you may be relatively immune to other modes of knowing such as Experience or Reason. For instance, many Catholics believe that the Pope is infallible and thus accept what he says as the “Truth.” Appeals to Reason or Tradition will have little impact on a Catholic who is convinced that the Pope is infallible. Many people listen to Rush Limbaugh each week and take what he and other talk show hosts say as the 100 percent bona-fide truth. Appeals to scientific research or logic will make little difference to these devotees of radio talk shows

A good question which I have ignored up to this point is; are knowing and believing the same? Or we could put it another way, what is the difference, if any, between knowing and believing? Endless debates could ensue over this question and its ideological distinctions. I think that in order to believe something I must first “know” it. However, I can know something without believing it. For instance, my sister tells me that she has won the lottery. I now know that she thinks she has won the lottery, but my natural skepticism stops me from believing it. Believing anyone’s assertions rests on either being able to validate their assertions or simply trusting in what they say. If I am unwilling to do either, then belief remains absent. That is because belief carries with it the assumption of validation or trust that I have noted above. Thus belief must follow knowing but knowing does not necessitate belief.

I can of course be wrong in my beliefs if my assumptions about what I think I know are wrong. Thus, if I trust in the wrong authority or wrong facts or any of the various ways of knowing are compromised by errors or fallacies then I can come to believe the wrong things. This is a very important observation because it is the foundation for errors, arguments and illegitimate conclusions. If I trust the wrong method of knowing or if my method of knowing is somehow compromised by errors or bias, then my set of beliefs can be 100 percent wrong. Now let us examine each way of knowing in some detail to see why no single way is infallible and that there are pros and cons to each way of knowing.

1. Empiricism/Experience.

I put my hand in the fire and it hurt, I won’t do that again. I trusted you and you cheated on me, I won’t trust anyone again. I lost a lot of money playing the slot machines and I won’t be gambling ever again. Many say experience is the best teacher. Dr. W. E. Deming always said “Experience without theory teaches nothing.” Many managers have subscribed to a management theory called MBWA, or Management by Walking Around. Others have called this, Management by Wandering Around. Dr. Deming always said, if you don’t have a theory you are just bothering your employees by your MBWA.

Some say “experience is the best teacher.” However as with all modes of knowing, there are pros and cons. You cannot experience all life has to offer and some experiences may very well kill you. You can learn a great deal from your experiences if you survive and if as Deming notes, you find the proper theory to address your experience. However, experiences can become roadblocks to learning and growing if they imprint indelible memories on your mind that you are unwilling to challenge or go beyond. Stereotypes and biases are generally rooted in limited experiences and eventually dominate our thoughts and behaviors. Racism, homophobia, sexism and many other prejudices may grow out of a limited set of experiences that we then extrapolate to the whole world.

2. Reason/Logic/Science

Spock would have said that the only way of knowing is by logic, reason and facts. You put 1+1 together and it equals 2. You make deductions from evidence that lead to incontrovertible truths. Scientific studies, research and data point the way to absolute knowledge or do they? In a day when one study contradicts another study, when one scientist disputes another scientist and when research findings continually reverse themselves, can we really rely on facts, evidence and scientific research to point out the truth? Obviously, much of the public does not. Intellectuals, professors and scientists are held in pretty low esteem by a large section of the population. Few believe the pronouncements from the Olympic heights of the University Ivory Towers and can you blame them? One day eggs are bad for you, the next day they are good. One day cholesterol is bad, the next day it’s good. One day, large amounts of protein are good for you and the next day, you need to eat more carbohydrates.

The rational man has often been considered the epitome of humanity, the individual who can divorce emotions from reason and make judgments based on logic and not feeling. There are many jokes about our inability to do this, but the value is still extolled of reason and logic over emotion and feeling. The problem lies in the underlying assumptions that govern the final product. For instance, a jury is supposed to base its decision on logic and facts, but its facts are limited and sometimes fallible. All science and research is based on a limited set of facts which have varying degrees of reliability and validity.

The precision of our judgments notwithstanding, they are often based on inputs of dubious reliability. Take any recent court case that you can think of and you will find that the truth is never as simple as it seems at first. Furthermore, one has only a limited time frame in which to uncover and study any facts. There is never enough time to study all the facts that could potentially be uncovered and there is never enough time to study the facts that are uncovered. We live in a world limited by the dimension of time. While the constitution promises any accused the right to a speedy and impartial trial, the notion of speedy can be counterproductive to finding the truth. The idea of impartial is a fiction that exists only in the ideal. Finding a scientist, jury, doctor or lawyer that is impartial would be like finding a needle lost in the galaxies.

Facts, logic and reason have the virtue of objectivity and exclusion of emotions. However, they are limited by factors of bias, time, quality of research and validity of data. No perfect data set exists and no perfect human exists to interpret such a data set even if it did exist. The individual who would strictly base their beliefs on science and data would be no further ahead than the individual who relied solely on intuition or authority.

3. Authority

God told me that’s how I know. The Pope is infallible so he can’t be wrong. Rush Limbaugh always tells the truth. My country right or wrong! Unthinking fealty? Unthinking patriotism? But if you can’t trust the President, who can you believe? Why would God lie to me? Who should I believe if not the Pope?

We elect, promote, hire and support “higher authorities” as our leaders because we are willing to suspend our belief in ourselves and hope that someone else out there might be closer to the truth than we are. In essence, we transfer our faith in ourselves to a faith in others. The pros of this position lay in the recognition that we do not have all the answers and that there are many others out there who have a better chance of grasping the truth than we do. If you can’t believe God, who can you believe?

On the other hand, the world is full of uninformed, misinformed and simply mistaken people. Many of them are in positions of authority. Authorities are often no less biased than anyone else. Politicians all have an ax to grind or they would not be in politics. If you think the President or the Pope has all the answers, you must believe that they as human beings are infallible and omnipotent. Since most Presidents and Popes are now buried, the statistics would seem to support their more mundane alliance with humanity. A humanity that is often prejudiced, wrong and unenlightened.

God however is another story. By some definitions, God is simply “Omniscience.” By such a definition, God would have to know everything. Even if we accept this idea, there is still a problem with the “Truth” received from God. The problem however does not lie with God the Omniscient Speaker but Man the Receiver. As any communications course will teach you, there is always a great deal of static between a speaker and a receiver. God is the speaker and humans the receivers. Humans do not always hear things clearly. There is also the element of cognitive bias that all human receivers add to any intended message. Thus, if God were speaking to you, you would have two basic problems:

Was his message distorted? Did you hear him clearly?

How do you interpret his message? Is it really unambiguous or are you biasing his message with your own preconceptions?

Those who claim to have infallible information from God concerning “Truth: have an obligation to satisfy the above two constraints before expecting the rest of the world to truly believe that they know what God wants.

“If one has all the answers to all the questions, that is the proof that God is not with him.” — Pope Francis

4. Intuition

Some people claim to know things by gut feeling or instinct. In addition to our five senses which give us data about the world, many people believe in a sixth sense which they feel communicates information about the world to them. This information does not take place in any visible manner and thus many people remain skeptical about intuition and other metaphysical ways of knowing such as telepathy and clairvoyance.

“Intuition provides us with views, understandings, judgments, or beliefs that we cannot in every case empirically verify or rationally justify. For this reason, it has been not only a subject of study in psychology, but also a topic of interest in various religions and esoteric domains, as well as a common subject of New Age writings. The right brain is popularly associated with intuitive processes such as aesthetic or generally creative abilities. Some scientists have contended that intuition is associated with innovation in scientific discovery.” —- Wikipedia

The pros of intuition as a means of knowing include the possibility of knowing things that sense data or facts and empirical evidence cannot demonstrate. Given the limits to science and observation as ways of knowing, this single pro is extraordinarily alluring and powerful. There are those who seem to rely almost exclusively on intuition as a means of knowing. The dangers to such reliance are prodigious. For instance, what if everyone simply chose to believe what their intuition told them to believe? How many people would accept ideas and actions that the rest of the world had no way to validate or verify? If trust is a precursor to believing and knowing, then any knowledge based on intuition would simply assume that everyone must trust everyone else. My intuition would be as valid as your intuition. Standards, common facts and most of science would be rendered useless since all knowing is now personal and subjective.

5. Tradition

My fifth method of knowing comes from an article that I read many years ago in a philosophy book on ways of knowing. The author included four ways of knowing and one of these was tradition. I feel that if we are going to limit the discussion to the “most” important or most common ways of knowing that Tradition belongs in our list.

Whenever I think of the word tradition, I hear refrains from Fiddler on the Roof (Hyperlinked to the song here)

Who, day and night, must scramble for a living, Feed a wife and children, say his daily prayers? And who has the right, as master of the house, To have the final word at home? The Papa, the Papa! Tradition. The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.

Tradition has been relied upon for centuries as a way of knowing and believing. In many societies, the methods of living, loving and dying have been predicated on centuries old ways of doing things that have been passed down from one generation to the next. When Tevye says “You may ask, how did these traditions get started?” He replies: “I’ll tell you. I don’t know.” Such is the way of tradition that the basis for most traditions becomes lost in antiquity. No one knows or really cares how the tradition got started.

The pros of tradition as a means of knowing depend on its robustness and resiliency. Any means of knowing that can pass down useful knowledge for centuries is extraordinarily powerful. Stories, metaphors, tales, custom and habits become enshrined as the way things are done. They are the way they have always been done and these methods may have worked for decades, centuries or perhaps millenniums. Few could dispute the value of such traditions.

Conversely, traditions can become strictures that strangle growth and progress. “We have always done it that way” can be an excuse for a failure to find new ways or better ways of doing things. Progress depends to a large extent on ignoring or even flaunting traditions. You cannot go into the future with one foot still stuck in the past. How do we know what traditions to let go of and what traditions to hold onto becomes a major cultural dilemma? No simple formulas or answers exist to guide one through the maze. In many ways, the disagreements between liberals and conservatives all pivot around this central question. Liberals tend to want progress and to want to let go of the past, while conservatives want to hold onto traditions and time honored protocols.

Ut cognoscatis et credatis

All humanity is on a never ending quest for meaning in life. We dispute our ideas of meaning based on what we perceive, what we know and what we believe. Ideology is the basis for all disputes and dissension in the world. What I know and believe is not consistent with your views. What actions I take are based on my knowledge and beliefs about the world. When these are in conflict with what others perceive as truth and knowledge, the outcome is often violence. Humans cannot change their very nature but they can change the basis upon which they make their decisions and judgments. The basis for truth and believing can be altered and reconsidered. No one has to rely only on one means of knowing or perceiving the world.

In fact, anyone who does rely only on one means of knowing and believing is like someone who uses only one sense to perceive the world. IF we have eyes, ears and nose, we use them all to guide us in the world. It only makes sense to use as many modes of knowing as we can before we make a decision. Furthermore, it must be understood and accepted that no single mode is infallible. No single mode leads unalterably to the truth. No single mode will always be right. No single mode is perfect.

The wise person will ask themselves what and how have they arrived at their version of the truth? What mode has informed their opinion? Would other modes lead to different assumptions and different truths? What biases exist in their ways of knowing?

Socrates had one day asked the Oracle at Delphi who was the wisest man alive and the Oracle had proclaimed that Socrates was. Socrates could not accept this because he realized and accepted that he was mostly ignorant about the world. So Socrates decided he would try and find out if anyone knew what was truly worthwhile in life, because anyone who knew that would surely be wiser than him. He set about questioning everyone he could find, but no one could give him a satisfactory answer. Instead they all pretended to know something they clearly did not.

Finally he realized that the Oracle might be right after all. He was the wisest man alive because he alone was prepared to admit his own ignorance rather than pretend to know something he did not.

“The scientist is not a person who gives the right answers, he’s one who asks the right questions.” ― Claude Lévi-Strauss

An excellent summary of the pros and cons of four of the above ways of knowing can be found at: WAYS OF KNOWING, a handout for use with chaplaincy research students — Chaplain John Ehman

Time for Questions:

What do you know? How do you know things? What is your preferred mode of knowing? Do you ever rely on other modes for your truths about the world? Which others do you use? What do you think are the pros and cons of your modes of knowing? What other modes could you use? What stops you from using them? Are you relying too much on one mode and ignoring other possible ways of knowing? Are you too sure of your truths? Are you the wisest man/woman in the world?

No doubt many of you will know Richard Cory. For those who don’t know him formally, I am sure you know him personally. He is that person we all want to be. He is rich, famous and good looking. He is popular, likable and a wonderful human. He is on everyone’s list of most: most eligible, most likely to succeed, most likely to be president, most likely to be remembered. We all know a Richard Cory. We all have someone we dream we could change places with.

The papers print his picture almost everywhere he goes: Richard Cory at the opera, Richard Cory at a show. And the rumor of his parties and the orgies on his yacht! Oh, he surely must be happy with everything he’s got.

Oh, I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be

Richard Cory.

Why did God forget me? Why was I not born wonderful, magical and fantastic? Why does everyone else get the breaks? What does he/she have that I don’t have? Why couldn’t I be rich? How come I am not famous?

Oh, I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be

Richard Cory.

Life’s not fair. It has never been fair. What did I do to deserve this kind of a life? Why did I get a bunch of losers for friends and relatives? If only things had been different. I never had a chance. It’s not right. Everybody was always picking on me. Even Mom and Dad never really liked me. I hate everyone. If only I could start my life over again. Things would be different.

I curse the heavens above. I curse the purgatory where I may go. I curse the hells below. I curse the places that might exist but none alive will ever know.

Oh, I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be

Richard Cory.

What might I have been if things had worked out differently? Where did I go wrong? Why did fate deal me a stacked deck? Why did so many bad things happen to me? Why Lord? Why? Why did thou hate me so much?

Oh, I wish that I could be,

Oh, I wish that I could be

Richard Cory.

Maybe you know how this story ends? I worked in Richard Cory’s factory. I had a wife who loved me and three young children who grew up healthy and happy. I lived to a ripe old age. I died in my sleep one night surrounded by my loved ones and several good friends. I was never rich in material things but I was blessed with an abundance of spiritual goods. I did not realize how many blessings I had until the angel took my hand to take me away. I tried to speak out then and bless everyone for being so kind and loving to me, but it was too late. The angel said that it was always that way with humans. We think everyone has it better than us and that the grass is always greener next door. I only wish I knew then what I know now. I hope it’s not too late for you.

And he was rich – yes, richer than a king –

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.
So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Some of the lyrics above are taken from Simon and Garfunkel’s Richard Cory, while some are taken from the poem “Richard Cory” by the original writer Edwin Arlington Robinson. This poem was published in 1897. The lyrics in the song differ from the lyrics in the poem.

Time for Questions:

Why did Richard Cory kill himself? Do you ever covet your neighbor’s wife? Why? Have you ever cursed the life you have? Why? What blessings have you been given that you most commonly ignore or take for granted? Why? Are you happy? Why or why not? If not, what would make you happy?

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Hi, if you have comments, please post them in the comments section. However, if you have questions, please send me an email. I have been getting too many comments to respond to all of them. However, if you have questions about blogging or my website, send them to me at persico.john@gmail.com. This is a WordPress site and the theme is KOI. It is free. I welcome your questions.